Event

The White Liars/Black Comedy

v Black Comedy to be directed by William Walker is a one-act farce by Peter Shaffer, first performed in 1965. The play is written to be staged under a reversed lighting scheme: the play opens on a darkened stage. A few minutes into the show there is a short circuit, and the stage is illuminated to reveal the characters in a "blackout." On the few occasions when matches, lighters, or torches are lit, the lights grow dimmer. The title of the play is a pun. Brindsley Miller, a young sculptor, and his debutante fiancée Carol Melkett have borrowed some expensive, antique furniture from his neighbor Harold's flat without his permission in order to impress an elderly millionaire art collector coming to view Brindsley's work, and Carol's father Colonel Melkett. When the power fails, Harold returns early, and Brindsley's ex-mistress Clea shows up unexpectedly, things slide into disaster for him. Broad Comedy with boisterous moments and light adult humor.

v The White Liars to be directed by Lisa Martin evolves around Sophie Lemberg, an eccentric and disillusioned fortune teller (who imagines herself to be a baroness of the Holy Roman Empire) living in a decaying seaside resort, and the two young menTom, the lead singer in a rock band, and Frank, his business managerwho consult her. It soon becomes clear that their lives are much stranger than the fiction Sophie tries to create in her magic ball. Broad Comedy with boisterous moments and light adult humor. Presented with permission from Samuel French.